Google My Business Reviews Publishing Delayed
Looks like reviews being added to Google Maps business listings are being delayed for some reason. There are numerous complaints about this both in the Local Search Forums and the Google My Business Help Forums.
Google Hotel Health & Safety Data Now Fully Live
We saw it coming for a couple months now and we even saw it start rolling out a few weeks ago. But now, Google announced that in Google Travel hotel results, the health and safety data is now available for searchers. And yes, this time I can replicate…
Google Tests Bolder Font For Search Result URLs
Google always is testing and here is a bolder font for the search result snippet URLs. Andrea Cruz spotted this test and posted a screen shot on Twitter. You can see when you compare the normal snippet URL font to the one she spotted, the test is a bo…
iFrame Loophole Won’t Work For Google Core Web Vitals & Page Experience Update
As you know, we now know the Google Page Experience Update is coming on May 2021. But don’t try to fool or trick the metrics, specifically the iFrame loophole. Google’s Addy Osmani said that the Chrome UX report does not take into account content in …
Unusual Google Search Ranking Algorithm Chatter
Over the past few days there has been weird levels of chatter from within the SEO industry around a possible Google Search algorithm update. I say weird because some are saying the fluctuations in the search results are super high and some are saying n…
Google: No Plans On Taking Away Request Indexing Tool
So I put John Mueller of Google on the hot seat and asked him what is up with Google taking away goodies from us like the request indexing tool. He said “I am not planning on taking away anything.” He said the survey was just for him to learn what, if…
On Veterans Day Google, Bing, Yahoo & The Search Industry Pay Respect
Today is Veterans Day in the United State of America, a day where Americans honor military veterans. It is a Federal holiday, so the banks and some government offices are closed. Like every year, Google, Bing, Yahoo and others pay its respects to the …
Google Page Experience Update To Launch May 2021 With New Snippet Labels
Google announced that the Page Experience Update will be live in about 6-months, i.e. in May 2021. With that launch, Google will also be testing new visual indicators, like labels, in the search results to communicate to searchers if that page does we…
Video On Google Search Quality Evaluators/Raters
Google has released a short video on how Search Quality Evaluators help Google make Google Search better. I assume this is part of Google trying to debunk some myths and get the word out that these Search Quality Evaluators do not manually impact the …
Bing Does Not Know Its Ranking Signal Weights – Machines Learning Deals With It
Izzi Smith and Marcus Tandler in their 302 of a Kind weekly SEO video chat interviewed Microsoft’s Fabrice Canel. In that interview Fabrice Canel explained that he and no one really knows the individual weights of the ranking signals used at Bing becau…
Google: XML Sitemaps Are A Minimal Baseline For Any Serious Website
Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter that having an XML Sitemap file is “a minimal baseline for any serious website.” Basically, all serious websites should have an XML sitemap file part of it or it is not a serious website.
Google Responds To Exact Match Domain Not Ranking For Christmas Trees
Got to say, this is an unusual response from Google’s John Mueller. In short, someone with an exact match domain asked John why his site is not ranking for its brand name. The web site domain has Christmas Trees in it and the search query he shared a…
Advertiser: Google Smart Shopping Campaigns Can Report Fake Revenues
Kirk Williams posted a warning that if you are using the new customer acquisition goals in Google Smart Shopping Campaigns, Google might show you revenue that is not real. The issue is that you set how much is the value of a new customer, and Google w…
Google Survey: Why You Want The URL Submission Tool Back
Three weeks ago, Google “temporarily” suspended use of the request indexing tool within Google Search Console. Today, John Mueller of Google says he has no news yet on the tool but created a Google Form asking SEOs why they are missing the “URL submiss…
Beware Of Google My Business Listings Hijackings
Joy Hawkins, a local SEO expert, has said she has seen a “large increase” in the number of hijacked Google My Business listings over the past couple of months. There is this large Google My Business Help thread with almost a hundred posts in it about …
Google Investigating Complaints Of Original Content Not Ranking
There has been a number of complaints from various publishers online that Google Search is letting non-original sources of content outrank their original content in Google Search, Google News and Google Discover. Danny Sullivan of Google has been respo…
Loser: Google Images vs Bing Images
I have been watching the Google and Bing Image search results all weekend for the search term [loser]. I mean, this is the type of stuff that would normally be polluted with the political hacks and commentary. But I got to say, Google has not taken t…
Vlog #93: Michael Lewittes: A Journalist Turned Investor After Succeeding In Journalism With SEO (Part One)
Michael Lewittes came to my home on a Sunday to talk to me about his unique perspective as starting as a journalist and reporter…
Google Drops Local Pack Reviews For Banks
I am not sure when this happened but it seems Google is now treating banks differently in the local results. The local pack would normally show reviews for banks, but now the reviews are missing. You can see them when you click into the detail listing…
Who SEOs Voted For In The US Presidential Elections
I saw an interesting NPR story on which types of Americans voted for who in this US Presidential election race. It breaks it down by tons of different characteristics but not by SEOs. So I ran a super scientific (probably more scientific than our pro…